Industrial Conflict

1. 

4. Industrial
Disputes/Conflicts
Interest Disputes Rights Disputes
Figure: Classification of Industrial Disputes

6. Generally, the major causes of industrial
conflicts and strikes relate to wages, unions, rivalry,
political interferences, unfair labour practices,
multiplicity of labour laws, etc. However, Industrial
conflicts/Strikes also occurs because of economic and
non-economic causes like psychological, ideological,
and political causes. Hence, the causes of industrial
conflicts can be grouped in to four categories. They are
as follows:
1.Economic Causes
2.Management Causes
3.Trade union practices
4.Legal and Political factors.

9. 

11. 

12. there are two important consultative arrangements made
to prevent industrial disputes. These are works
committees and joint management.
Work Committees: Organization employing 100 or more
persons have to set up works committees at unit level.
These committees have equal number of representatives
from the workers and the employers. Work committees are
purely consultative in nature and have been regarded as
the most effective agency for the prevention of industrial
disputes. The objective of work committees are to:
• Remove the causes of friction in the day to day work
situation
• Foster amity and harmonious relationship between the
parties
• Create an atmosphere for volunteering settlement of
disputes and frictions

13. Issues relating to wages, benefits , bonus, terms and
conditions of employment, hours of work, welfare majors,
training , development , promotion, transfer etc fall under the
purview of works committees.
Joint Management Council(JMC):
These councils were set up to enable workers to participate in
management and enfuse a spirit of cooperation between the
workers and the management. The salient features of the
JMCs are as follows:
 The scheme is a volunteering one.
 The minimum and maximum number of its members are six
and twelve respectively consisting of equal number of
representatives of workers and employers.
 The JMCs deal with matters like information sharing and
administrative.

14.  The decision taken by the JMC should be unanimous once.
 The JMCs can be set up in the units employing 500 or more
persons and having strong trade unions.
Standing orders
The very purpose of having Standing Orders in the
organizations is to regulate industrial relations. Essentially,
the term ‘Standing Orders’ refers to the rules and regulations
which govern the conditions of employment of workers. These
standing orders are binding on the employer and the
employees.
Code of Discipline
According to the code of discipline, both employees and
employer voluntarily agree to maintain and create an
atmosphere of mutual trust and cooperation in the industry.

15. The code of discipline provides for that:
 Strikes and lockouts can not be declared without
prior notice.
 No party should take any direct action without
consulting the other.
 The existing machinery for the settlement of
disputes should be followed.
When industrial disputes could not be prevented
even after adopting various preventive measures, as
just discussed, disputes occurred need to be settled
at the earliest possible so as its impending costs are
minimized. This calls for a discussion on “settlement
of industrial disputes”.

16. Settlement of industrial disputes/conflicts
Whatever may be the cause of industrial conflicts ,
the consequences are harmful to all stakeholders-
management, employees, economy and the
society.
Various methods/approaches are available for
resolving disputes/conflicts in the organizations
and most common are:
 Collective bargaining
 Code of discipline
 Grievance procedure
 Arbitration
 Conciliation
 Adjudication
 Consultative machinery

17. 1. Collective bargaining:
It is probably the most effective method of
resolving industrial conflicts. It occurs when
representatives of a labour union meet
management representatives to determine
employees' wages and benefits and to solve
other issues. It involves six major steps:
 Preparing for Negotiations
 Identifying bargaining issues
 Negotiation
 Reaching the agreement
 Ratifying the agreement
 Administration of the agreement

18. 2. Code of Discipline:
It defines duties and responsibilities of workers
and employers. The objectives of code are :
 To ensure that employers and employees
recognize each other’s rights and obligations.
 To promote constructive co-operation between
the parties concerned at all levels.
 To secure settlement of disputes and grievances
by negotiation, conciliation and voluntary
arbitration.
 To eliminate all forms of coercion, intimidation
and violence in IR.
 To avoid work stoppages.
 To facilitate the free growth of trade unions.
 To maintain discipline in industries.

19. 3. Grievance procedure:
All labour agreements contain some form of grievance procedure. If
the procedure is followed strictly, any conflicts/disputes can easily be
resolved.
A grievance may be understood as an employee’s dissatisfaction or
feeling of personal injustice relating to his/her employment
relationship.

20. General grievance procedure can be seen as:
Stage 4:
Complaint to union
Stage 3:
Complaint to Divisional
head
Stage 2:
Complaint to Dept. head
Stage 1:
Complaint to Section
head
YES
NO
YES
NO
YES
No

21. 4.Arbitration: It is a procedure in which a neutral third party studies
the bargaining situation, listen to both the parties and gathers
information, and then makes recommendations that are binding on
the parties.
It has achieved the certain degree of success in resolving disputes
between the labour and the management. However, it is not without
its weaknesses, such as:
 It is expensive and the expenditure needs to be shared by the labour
and the management.
 Judgment becomes arbitrary if there is a mistake in selecting the
Arbitrator.
 Too much Arbitration is not a sign of healthy IR.
5. Conciliation:
It is a process by which representatives of workers and employers
are brought together before a third party with a view to persuading
them to arrive at an agreement by mutual discussion between them.
The third party may be individual or a group of people. They are also
named as mediators.

22. 6.Adjudication:
It means a mandatory settlement of an individual dispute by a labour
court or a tribunal. Generally, the government refers a dispute for
adjudication depending on the failure of conciliation proceedings.
7.Consultative machinery:
Towards the end, it is essential to refer to the consultative machinery
set by the government to resolve conflicts. Its main function is to
bring the parties together for mutual settlement of differences in a
spirit of cooperation and goodwill.
It operates at the plant, industry, state and the national levels. At
plant level, there are works committee and joint management councils
Similarly, labour advisory boards operate at the state level and
national level.

23. Case Study: The Bulb Manufacturing Company
Bulb Manufacturing Company, the subsidiary of well- known international
cooperation, specialized in the manufacture of electrical equipments like
bulbs, electric stoves, heaters, coolers and presses. It had been operating in
India for about two decades.
The company had recently finalized the expansion plans of its only factory in
India. It was decided to shift the factory to a new location, five miles away.
The company had to do the shifting because the expansion plans required
more space than was available at the old site. Since the present factory was
situated in the heart of town, the workers did not have much transport
difficulty. The old factory site was easily accessible, and it did not cost much
on transport either. The new site though far-off was well connected by train
and bus service. There was no transport difficulty and some of the workers
were already living in that area. The workers agreed to shift to new premises
only if the company granted a flat increase of Rs.25 in their monthly salary.
The company instead offered to give the workers a lump sum of Rs.30 as a
resettlement allowance and a permanent increase in salary of Rs.5 per month
to each workers. This was the situation in October, 1979.
When the plant was being shifted to new site, negotiations between the
company management and the workers representatives went on uninterrupted
for about six months. The workers modified their original demand and
content with a lump sum of Rs.70 as resettlement allowance and a permanent
increase of Rs. 5 per month as a conveyance as allowance. After further
negotiations and some informal bargaining the agreed amount was Rs. 45 as
lump sum and Rs.5 as conveyance allowance.

24. The company’s representatives promised to consider this demand. This was
taken by the union leaders to mean that the company has already conceded
this demand. The management’s attitude became stiff and it struck to its old
offer.
The workers refused to compromise on those terms. The workers threatened
to adopt the ‘go-slow’ tactics. For three months since December they went
slow, the company’s production of bulbs was adversely affected. The
production went down. The company assembled 30,000 bulbs per month
previously and with the ‘go-slow’ the production declined to 20,000. the
management refused to intimidate. It sat stiff on its stand.
During this period also, the negotiations were going on. It was at this stage
that the union sought the ministerial intervention. The company argued that
unless the workers resumed normal production, it would not consider the
inflated demands much less concede to them. The Labour Minister agreed. The
Central Government was absolutely against ‘go-slow’ tactics. The workers
stressed that the production figure 30,000 was the result of overtime work.
They also said that it there were no overtime the normal production would be
20,000 bulbs. The company proved the Minister, by quoting previous records,
that the workers were going slow. The minister could not help the workers. He
could intervene only when the workers resumed normal production. It was at
this stage that the company charge sheeted the 10 ring leaders and suspended
them pending inquiry. This proved too much for the workers. The labour
leader agreed to accept the very original terms of the company and offered to
give normal production provided the suspended leaders were reinstated. The
company refused to take any notice of even this modified demand.
Then the workers gave notice of strike on February 28, 1980.

25. The whole idea was to put pressure on the company in the most critical
month of the year, namely, March when the company needed maximum
production to dispose of outstanding orders for bulbs. This was the
assumption on which the workers proceeded. The company refused to yield.
During the first three days, the workers staged a stay in strike. After that, the
company dared to lock-out for two days. The company opened the gates of
the factory on the sixth day but the strike continued for two months.
The company refused to budge an inch from its stand.
QUESTIONS:
1.What is the problem in this case?
2.Are the ‘go-slow’ tactics and the strike justified? Who are responsible for
them? What is the remedy?
3.Should the management reinstate the suspended ring leaders?
4.Comment on the collective bargaining approach of the union and
management representatives.